Blake Pontchartrain: Who is “Infrogmation”?

A reader asks about the New Orleans photographer whose work is all over Wikimedia

Infrogmation appears to have visited and photographed most things in the city. Here is a shot of an ad for "Dixie 45 Bottle Beer" on the side of a building.

Hey Blake,

Gambit often runs photos by a photographer called Infrogmation. From his Flickr and Wikimedia accounts he appears to have photographed most things in the New Orleans area. Who is Infrogmation?

ANNA

Dear Anna,

Between the hundreds of photos he's posted on the photo-sharing site Wikimedia Commons, and his Flickr page of more than 25,000 photos (most of which he took, others he curated from various historical sources), this photographer is among the city's more prolific shutterbugs.

Froggy, as some people call him, asked that we not reveal his real name, preferring to protect the anonymity under which he works online. We can tell you that he has lived in New Orleans since 1977, has been a volunteer disc jockey on WWOZ since its earliest days in 1981 and hosts a weekly traditional jazz show on Monday mornings. Infrogmation also writes about jazz history. A trombonist, he performs with The New Orleans Steamcog Orchestra, a retro ragtime and
Dixieland jazz band.

Froggy began contributing to Wikimedia in 2002. He says he has always been an amateur shutterbug and took photos of neighborhoods, celebrations and local landmarks pre-Hurricane Katrina, but his photography interests only increased after the storm. His photos helped document much of the devastation following the hurricane and levee failures.

"I consider myself more as a guy with a camera than a photographer," Infrogmation said in an interview with blogger Derek Bridges. "I see so many people who have these wonderful eyes, frame things wonderfully and man, they're so great, and I know I don't do that. But I also know from history working as an archivist and an amateur historian ... that a lot of history has been documented not just by professional photographers but also by some person with a camera who was there at the time."